According to official records, nearly 1,600 people, mostly children, died of TB in Tranquille. In order to move the bodies between buildings without creating a commotion or disturbing the other patients, nearly two kilometres of tunnels were built beneath Tranquille’s streets. While townsfolk went about their business above ground, the dearly departed went about theirs below ground.
After the Tranquille Sanatorium closed in the 1950s, the property changed hands a few times (becoming a hospital to treat the mentally ill, and an ill-fated amusement park, of all things). In 1983 the property was completely abandoned and the buildings began to fall into disrepair. Tranquille became a desolate place, haunted by the tragic memories of what had transpired there, and this, of course, attracted a new interest in the area. Curiosity seekers, ghost hunters and teens looking for a place to spook each other snuck into the town after nightfall. Many were too afraid of the unsettling vibe in the air to ever leave their cars, but those who were brave enough were treated to a truly eerie experience. At one time the sanatorium was filled with rusting wheelchairs and dirty medical equipment, and the operating room was painted with old bloodstains. One woman who worked there when it was a mental hospital said all the staff and patients regularly heard screams in empty wards and shuffling in unoccupied beds, and these sounds still reverberate through the building today. Rumour has it that a nurse was murdered by a patient long ago, leaving her spirit to forever wander the grounds.
But the most frightening place on the property remains the dark tunnels that snake their way through the dirt below the town. People have heard voices and seen shadowy figures in these murky depths, as if the ghosts of the bodies that were once carted underground are still stuck six feet under.
Staff of Tranquille Farm — the new owners — recently made an unusual discovery during an investigation of the tunnels: near the morgue where the bodies were stored are a dining hall and a barbershop, giving new meaning to the expression “a hair-raising experience.”
In Tranquille, you get two ghost towns for the price of one — one above ground, one below. Few have the guts to venture very deep into either, let alone both.
A GHOSTLY ALMA MATER
St. Thomas, Ontario
As mortified onlookers watched in horror and recorded the event on their mobile phones, the towering and iconic steeple of Alma College collapsed a little after noon on May 28, 2008. The grand, Gothic building had been engulfed in a raging inferno, the fire started by two teenage boys. Fortunately, no one was harmed in the fire as the college had sat vacant since it closed in 1988. But one has to wonder what became of the tormented souls that haunted the building after the blaze reduced it to cinders and ash.
The most well-known ghost of Alma College haunted its halls for nearly a century. It was an all-girls private school built in 1878 that focused its studies on literature, art and music, with a student body that included young women from around the globe.
Elissa Lyman, a student from 1983 to 1986, lived nearby and therefore didn’t sleep in the dormitory like so many of her classmates. She recalls with unease the times when winter weather made it too dangerous to drive home after class, forcing her to spend the night. They were often restless, those nights spent in the dorm, as her sleep was plagued by the bizarre sounds that filled the school. The only explanation Elissa could think of for the midnight noises was that they were caused by the wanderings of Angela, the spirit the girls dubbed “the Ghost of Alma” in hushed tones.
The details surrounding Angela are a little hazy and stories vary, but a retired teacher confirmed that the faculty and staff reported seeing her ghost in the castle-like building as early as the 1930s. Most people believe that Angela was a music teacher, although some assert she was a house mother (someone assigned to ensure the young girls behaved appropriately and patrolled the halls after curfew). Regardless of Angela’s position within Alma College, everyone agrees that she was a mean woman who was nasty toward the students, making her disliked by all.
Legend has it a group of teen girls decided to play a prank on Angela, hoping to give her a taste of her own medicine. They locked her in a cupboard and left her there overnight, but it’s unlikely they intended for their “joke” to have such dire consequences. The cupboard was too small and sealed airtight, and Angela soon ran out of air. Her suffocated body was found the next morning.
Shortly thereafter, her ghost was seen in what was nicknamed the Ivory Tower, one of two stairwells leading to a storage room on the second floor at the south end of the building. Some have reported that if you stay alone in the Ivory Tower long enough you’ll see her descending the stairs, and others not brave enough to attempt that feat have heard her footsteps walk past. It’s a telling sign that the Ivory Tower’s walls were unmarked while the second tower’s walls were covered with the signatures of generations of schoolgirls. Apparently, no one wanted to deface the stairwell where Angela dwelt.
Many years after Alma College closed and began to fall into disrepair, a team of ghost hunters snuck onto the grounds and crept through the dust-covered halls. They slowly climbed the creaking stairs to the very top of the Ivory Tower. Here, one of the braver people in the group knocked on the wall. It was answered by the hollow sound of another knock.
“Is this Angela?” the ghost hunter asked.
“Yes,” said a very low whisper.
As this was the very type of experience the group had hoped for, they didn’t turn and run. They also noted that, despite Angela’s reputation for having gone through life as a mean-spirited woman, her ghost did not give them a bad vibe. Perhaps she has remained on this plane to atone for her sins and to make up for the way she mistreated her young students. Perhaps she’s a new woman, so to speak.
The peaceful feeling the group got from Angela, however, did not extend to the rest of the college. They constantly felt unwanted and surrounded by a dark, evil energy that they attributed to many ghosts, some old but most young. At first the spirits seemed merely curious about the intruders. On the main staircase voices called out, “Who are you?” and “Why are you here?” In the library the leader’s hand was innocently grabbed by a small child. But the longer they remained, the more active — and upset — the spirits became.
In the basement they witnessed objects being moved on their own and heard a voice warn them to leave now. Unheeding the advice, the ghost hunters travelled up to the old dorm rooms where, if the story is to be believed, the girls who murdered Angela would have spent their nights. The visitors described the area as a hot spot for dark entities, all identifiable as teenage girls. The group used a digital recorder that, when played back, revealed so many voices overlapping each other that much of what was said couldn’t be understood. But the words that cut through the ruckus were foul, abusive and threatening. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but so would a hard shove at the top of the stairs. And the dead girls repeatedly tried to trip and push the living intruders in this part of the building.
Stairs leading to the main floor and basement
Today the grounds where Alma College once stood with pride are empty except for shattered bricks and burnt wood. Although you’ll never be able to climb the Ivory Tower and ask Angela if she’s still there, or brave the dangerously haunted dormitory, it’s said that the ghosts of Alma College still linger amidst the rubble of the grandiose building. In this light, the college’s motto is fitting:
Though we are far from thee
Still we long for thee
Ever loyal still
FED INTO THE FURNACE
Edmonton, Alberta
You might think that a gruesome murder story and a resident ghost might be bad for a hotel’s business, but for La Bohème in Edmonton, the opposite is true. Every Halloween the building is booked to capacity with guests hoping to catch a glimpse of the spectre that has terrorized many people over the years.
Built in 1912, La Bohème was originally a luxury three-storey apartment building with shops on the main floor
before being converted into a bed and breakfast in 1982. The story of the murder that happened while it was an apartment building is so horrific, so grisly, that the faint of heart might not want to read any further.
Still with me?
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
As co-owner and caretaker Mike Comeau and his ghost-hunting guests will tell you, the legend goes like this: the original caretaker murdered his wife on the top floor of the building and dragged her body by the feet down three flights of stairs. Then, in the dark, dingy basement, he fed her corpse into the furnace. But in order to make it fit, he had to chop it up into tiny pieces.
Since that day people have had terrifying experiences in the building. Guests have been woken in the middle of the night by the thud, thud, thud sound of a head banging down the stairs, only to rush into the hallway, turn on a light and see … an empty staircase.
Larry Finnson, a businessman and regular guest at La Bohème, had a particularly scary experience one night. While staying in Suite 7, the most haunted room, he woke up to find his bed levitating in mid-air.
Furnace of La Bohème
The murdered woman’s ghost has also bothered employees of the bed and breakfast. One woman was alone doing laundry in the basement next to the furnace room when she was suddenly grabbed from behind. Comeau says she was so petrified that she ran screaming up the stairs and straight out the front door, never to return.
Have a flip through La Bohème’s guest book and you’ll find otherworldly accounts forever etched in history by the hotel’s visitors, such as the couple who saw a beautiful woman in their closet at night, a woman whose feet had been severed from her legs.
Given the claims of what a previous caretaker used it for, you might be surprised to learn that the original furnace is still being used to heat the building today. If you visit La Bohème it’ll keep you warm through the night, even when your blood turns to ice.
DINING WITH THE DEAD
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Standing proudly on the busy downtown corner of Carmichael and Argyle Streets, the Five Fishermen Restaurant is one of Halifax’s busiest dining locations. But it’s not only bustling during open hours — some customers don’t wish to leave after it closes for the night. These customers don’t require much service from the wait staff. You see, they don’t eat anything and have a habit of disappearing into thin air when approached.
The brick-and-wood building was built in 1817 as a schoolhouse before becoming the Halifax Victorian School of Art. The school was run by Anna Leonowens in the years after she served as governess to the children of the King of Siam, which was made famous in the musical film The King and I. Despite this claim to fame, the school closed in the late 1800s and the building became even more famous — or rather, infamous.
In 1883 the building was converted into the John Snow & Co. Funeral Home, setting the stage for its morbid destiny.
On April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg during its maiden voyage from the United Kingdom to New York City. It sank a little less than three hours later in the North Atlantic Ocean, six hundred kilometres south of Newfoundland. It was the largest ship afloat at the time and its passengers were some of the wealthiest in the world. The sinking of the RMS Titanic was one of the deadliest maritime disasters in modern history, claiming the lives of more than fifteen hundred passengers. As the nearest mainland port, Halifax served as the home base for the rescue operations, and most of the bodies were brought to John Snow & Co. Funeral Home.
Five short years later, still reeling from the shock of the Titanic’s sinking, Nova Scotia was dealt another tragedy of unfathomable magnitude: the Halifax explosion. On December 6, 1917, a French cargo ship loaded with wartime explosives struck a second ship near Halifax Harbour. Twenty minutes later a fire ignited the cargo, creating the largest man-made explosion prior to the creation of nuclear weapons. The blast decimated an entire district of downtown Halifax, and flying debris, collapsing buildings and fires killed approximately two thousand people and injured nine thousand others. Once again, many of the dead were taken to the John Snow & Co. Funeral Home.
Having served as the final destination for so many victims of two of the modern world’s greatest disasters, it’s no wonder many people are struck by an unexplainable energy as soon as they set foot inside. But after the building changed hands once again and opened as the Five Fishermen Restaurant in 1975, customers unaware of the history might not be expecting a side of fright with their foie gras.
The spooky stories restaurant employees have shared are so numerous that they could nearly fill an entire book on their own. The staff are so accustomed to the spirits they work with that they no longer bat an eye when glasses fly from shelves, water taps turn on and off or cutlery lifts off tables and crashes on the floor. It’s common for the staff to hear their names whispered in their ears when they’re all alone. One employee once rushed into a private room called the Captain’s Quarters because he heard a man and a woman arguing, only to find the room empty. Servers have seen a misty grey apparition float down the stairs to the kitchen as they were closing the restaurant. Even more disconcerting was the time a server heard a tapping sound upon a second floor window, which was especially odd since nothing on ground level could reach the window. When she approached to investigate, she saw the same misty grey apparition hovering outside in the air.
Then there’s the man, old and tall with long grey hair, dressed in a black greatcoat from another time. He’s been spotted a few times, most notably by a young man whose task it was to prepare the salad bar before the dinner rush. One warm summer day he was carrying crates of vegetables to the bar when he heard a loud crash nearby. Unsure what could have caused the commotion — he was alone in the restaurant at the time — he set the vegetables down and wandered around the dining area. On the floor he found a shattered ashtray, which he knelt down to examine. When he stood back up he happened to look in a mirror, and in it he saw the old man in the long black coat walking toward him from behind. The young man dropped the ashtray and spun around, but the grey-haired man had disappeared.
You might have noticed that a common thread running through these stories is that the paranormal activity only occurs when there aren’t any customers in the restaurant, but that’s not always the case.
One evening a group of diners tried to send a text message from their table, but only one word — which the diners hadn’t typed — was sent to the recipient of the message: DEATH.
John Snow & Co., second building from right, with coffins for victims of the Halifax explosion stacked outside
Another particularly busy night, the hostess was walking a couple to their table. As they crossed the dining room she suddenly felt something hit her across the face, but she couldn’t detect the cause, so she assumed it was her imagination. After seating the couple, the hostess returned to the restaurant’s entrance where the maître d’ looked at her gravely and asked in a hushed tone, “What happened to your face?”
There, across the hostess’s cheek, as if she’d been slapped, was an angry red handprint.
WHERE HORROR AND HOCKEY SHARE A HOME
Toronto, Ontario
One bright and cheery summer day, a young boy toured the Hockey Hall of Fame with a group of adults. Like the three hundred thousand people who visit every year, the boy enjoyed the displays featuring Maurice “The Rocket” Richard and Wayne Gretzky, tested his own skills in the NHLPA Be a Player Zone and marvelled at the Stanley Cup up close.
Suddenly, as he passed through one of the exhibits, the boy stopped dead in his tracks. His rigid stance and wide eyes were so odd and out of place that the adults wondered what could possibly be wrong with him. Then, with a trembling hand, he pointed at an empty wall.
“What is it?” they asked him.
“Don’t you see her?” he screamed over and over and over. “Don’t you see her? Don’t you see her? Don’t you see her?”
There was no one there. “See w
ho?” they asked fearfully.
Jane Rodney, who was the Hall’s coordinator of resource centre services at the time, says the boy saw a woman with long black hair pass back and forth through the wall as if daring him to look away.
The description matched that of Dorothea “Dorothy” Mae Elliott, the Hockey Hall of Fame’s resident ghost. The boy is only one of two people who have seen Dorothy’s ghost, but plenty of others have had terrifying experiences and witnessed paranormal activity in the building since 1953. That was the year Dorothy died in the women’s washroom from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Before the Hockey Hall of Fame opened in 1993, the grand building that stands out among the contemporary skyscrapers was a branch of the Bank of Montreal for nearly one hundred years. Dorothy was a bank teller and, by her co-workers’ accounts, she was beautiful, sociable and very popular. But it was whispered around the bank that she was harbouring a dark secret. It was believed she was having an affair with a married man, either another teller or one of the branch managers. Perhaps this transgression is what led her to take her own life.
Co-worker Doreen Bracken arrived on the fateful day at 8:00 a.m. and was surprised to find Dorothy already at work looking tired, unkempt and depressed. At 9:00 a.m. another employee began screaming over the balcony of the second floor. Doreen and others raced upstairs and found Dorothy on the floor of the women’s washroom, a puddle of blood quickly spreading across the floor. Beside her body was the bank’s revolver, a .38 calibre that tellers were expected to use in case of a robbery.
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